This project is comprised of four key components:
(i) FRDC Final Report (Appendices 3-5 are provided as standalone documents);
(ii) Adaptation Handbook (designed to help fisheries managers, operators – and anyone else helping to support fisheries – step through a risk assessment and identify feasible adaptation options);  
(iii) Educational Excel Tool (to support the Handbook); and
(iv) Fact Sheet.

 

Climate change is presenting some of the greatest challenges faced by fisheries, especially in hotspot locations like Australia. This project found that the existing Commonwealth fisheries management framework has many vulnerabilities with respect to climate impacts and has many potential points of failure with respect to pursuing policy and legislated objectives and international obligations. While Commonwealth fisheries follow best practice management approaches, which means they are starting from the best possible response foundation (FAO in press) adaptive responses will be required to cope with the many faceted impacts climate change is having and is anticipated to have on Australian marine and coastal ecosystems (Creighton et al. 2016).

To assist the adaptation process, this project developed a process documented in an Adaptation Handbook (and associated excel tool). This process steps interested stakeholders, industry and managers through a structured process to rate  risks and identify adaptation options – both to do with fishery operations and management actions. The process and handbook were specifically developed with AFMA needs and Commonwealth fisheries in mind, but can be applied to fisheries in other jurisdictions. Users could adjust them as needed for the context of their fishery, adding/removing ecosystem factors, industry operations and management actions based on relevance to their fishery.

The project activities – the initial ecological sensitivity analysis undertaken for all Commonwealth fisheries, the assessment of potential risks to AFMA’s capacity to deliver on policy and legislated objectives and the initial illustrative implementations of the risk assessment and adaptation process – have highlighted some general adaptation options that are likely to be of value in many Australian fisheries.

Key findings are:
• All AFMA fisheries contain valuable species sensitive to climate change, with some of the most valuable fisheries amongst those fisheries showing the greatest sensitivity
• All fisheries, but especially short lived and invertebrate fisheries are likely to become far more variable into the future, that is, when, where and how much fish is caught
• Bycatch and TEPS are likely to be highly sensitive to climate change effects, meaning there will be a need to understand how that interacts with any fishing effects
• A shifting ecosystem state over multiple years (or decades) has the potential to go unnoticed and eventually undermine the sustainability of Australian fisheries and the businesses and livelihoods that depend upon them
• Cross jurisdictional management coordination will be required to improve adaptation to climate change, maximising flexibility needed for adaptive capacity and minimising the risks arising from cumulative effects
• Monitoring and forecast capacity will become key to understanding system change that supports evidence-based decision making, fishery sustainability and business profitability
• Australia needs to find a way of making monitoring and forecasting possible and supported long term to maintain our position and reputation as having well managed fisheries (Australia’s monitoring capacity is currently insufficient given the degree to which climate change will likely reshape Australian ecosystems).